At work, I went back to my project. I'm a planner, and it was what we called "grant season." I had a Community Development Block Grant application I was working on, seeking funding for road improvements in one of our little town's industrial parks.
Oh, hell, you don't care about any of that. I guess I'm just kind of proud, to be honest. One of the things a planner does is handle those applications and as a grantsman, that's what we call ourselves, I was very good. My batting average was about.800, good enough for the big leagues by anybody's metric.
Anyway, I worked on the application, handled a panicked call from a City Administrator, showed one of our junior planners how to do a labor market analysis, and did a proofread and edit on another application. This was by one of our junior planners, they tend to get the slam dunks while I get the projects that look impossible.
I'm doing it again. Well, okay, I'm good at what I do and I'm kind of vain. But enough of that.
When I got home, Arlene greeted me with a beer, a smile, and a kiss.
My wife is older than me. If the numbers matter, I'm 34 and she just hit the BIG 5-oh. I met her at a college bar when I was in graduate school, finishing up my Master's degree. I was 29 at the time and had joked to the students in my class, I was a Teaching Assistant back then, that in just a few months they wouldn't be able to trust me anymore. I was a history major and loved working little archaicisms (if it's not a word, it should be) like that into the discussion. You know, that slogan from the 1960s - never trust anyone over 30?
Anyway, she came into a bar I frequented in those days. Not a "college bar"
per se
, but a place where the older students hung out. Not as loud as a true college bar, but still pretty much a meat market.
When she came in I was smitten. Okay, I don't believe in "love at first sight" or any of that crap. But I WAS smitten.
She might as well have had a big sign reading "COUGAR." She was pretty obvious, actually.
Arlene's a big woman. She might run to truly fat now that I've talked her into quitting her stupid dieting, but she's definitely a big woman. At 5'8" she's tall for a woman. Just a couple of inches short of my 5'10". She's busty, her bras are 44FF and her measurements, by my actual tape, are 44-38-48. The extra four inches at her hips are from big hips but mostly from her truly spectacular bubble butt.
That night she was dressed in the perfect cougar uniform. A sleeveless blouse showed off her big arms. She's one of those women who accumulate fat at the back of her upper arms, something I have always found sexy on a woman. The skirt ended a little above her knees but fringe around the bottom took it below them. She had on nylons with a seam up the back, ruler-straight I was happy to note and I made a quick bet with myself that they weren't pantyhose either, and open-toed high heels, not true stilettos, but the three-inch heels made her a bit taller than me. Completing the uniform were big hoop earrings and a big, jangly, bracelet.
She was a bit over-made up too. She had gone a bit heavy on the eyeshadow, had on those ridiculous false eyelashes that I have never found attractive but I do think are sexy (if that makes any sense), and her hair was done big. Oh, not Dolly Parton big, but she had obviously spent some time with a brush and probably a rat tail comb.
Her hair was actually pretty damn good. She's a blonde, and one of those natural blondes with that thick hair. There was no hint of grey that I could see, though, and I suspected Miss Clairol or, more likely given her kind of well-tended look, something more expensive, in a white bottle with simple black lettering, from the salon she visited regularly.
So I turned on my best boyish grin, the one I practice regularly in the mirror, stood, and did the slight bow, arm sweeping gesture to offer the stool next to mine.
She paused, looked around the room, doing a slow survey, then met my eyes and nodded.
As she mounted and got seated on the stool I held out my hand and said, "David, pleased to meet you," in that formal way my mom had taught me.
That drew her smile and it was a good smile. I liked that she didn't bleach her teeth and her bottom teeth were slightly crooked. I made her human rather than a Barbie doll.